I am Elon.

I feel more accomplished than usual. Considering I’ve been that person that anxiously stacked all personal projects aside while tending only to work-related tasks for the last year (at least), the last 24 hours have been somewhat of a personal amazement. I mean, let’s gal about this. Seriously. What kind of awful person spends an entire year writing a love note to their significant other not because it’s difficult to count the ways in which I love him, but mostly because… I forgot. (Stark, I hope you’re not reading this. I’m not a terrible person, I swear.) So, yesterday alone – I was more than caught up on 3 weeks of mostly time off; I finished reading the biography of Elon Musk; I attacked a bunch of household items to get past the “move in” phase. That doesn’t even include starting the “job blog” and absolutely destroying my daily exercise goal.

I’m particularly happy to be one more book into my 15 books a year goal. (I’m a chronic goal setter. It’s a problem.)

So, this biography on Elon Musk – the man of PayPal, Tesla, and Space X – was funny to me. Previously, I’ve read the biographies of Steve Jobs and the president of Pixar, and I kind of expected something similar from this biography. By expected, I mean that all the bragged brilliance of Elon would remind me, like others have, of my Stark. I’ve watched him continually Master his career, never being complacent about having met expectations yet never giving off a sense of dissatisfaction. He simply does. He exceeds the bare minimum of work time and time again, and it is a phenomenon to me how he does it all without ever feeling anxious or expectant. He just knows he will be the best and best will be better than anyone could imagine. There’s no competition. There’s no self destruction of what if’s. But Elon? Elon is a hot mess!

Finally! There’s a book about a famous, hard working individual that I can completely align myself with. He’s not just famous. He’s infamous! I feel like I am that person.

You’d have to read the book to truly know, but let’s just put his crazy into perspective here. He makes high demands of his people. People want to work with him, despite his nature at times. He doesn’t just manage, he gets into the nitty gritty with people. And if someone isn’t doing their job or expresses they need some slack, he very matter-of-factly lets them know to go on 2 week sebaticle during which he will take over their job and determine if they are needed at all at the company. He does this with extreme passive aggression. Let me paraphrase, “Sure. I can understand why you need a f*%+^ing (he literally says it’s his favorite word) break. So why don’t you go on one while I determine if you should ever need to come back. I’ll just go ahead and do my job being CEO of two major companies, answering to boards, investors, and employees while you eat your f%+^#ing bon bins and if I can do your job without you, consider your vacation permanent.”

I… am not that hardcore.

Elon is also known for firing anyone that disagrees with him, at least if they disagree without any educated theory as to how to do something differently. Me? Not so much.

I’ve worked for managers that rapid fire people before and it isn’t good for anyone. But I am most certainly a manager that doesn’t spend my time practicing patience. Like Elon, we can party. Just a couple weeks ago I threw a party where half my team members showed up. We rocked a good time through nearly 2am. Fun was had by all. But I am also that person that won’t waste any time trying to understand something from a lack of communication. If you’re not even going to tell me why the work isn’t done, then I am going to hire someone else.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty great. I admire Elon very much, and I feel like if a personality like mine can share the company of someone that’s undoubtedly making history and changing the entire world as we know it, then maybe I don’t have to ignore my own great efforts and how little old me has made history in my own career.